Pre-booking express

Pre-booking express (PBE) is a fast-track service where customers can pre-book a viewing slot for a work and receive an age rating decision at an agreed time.

What can/can't I submit?

You can submit theatrical, VRA and digital video (Watch & Rate) content for PBE. All submissions are subject to our standard technical requirements. The content of you submit for PBE should be straightforward to classify and uncontroversial. We are unlikely to accept into the PBE service content that raises novel or difficult classification or legal issues.

How do I make a booking?

Please select either an AM or a PM session. You can book PBE for theatrical content up to midday the day before your ideal viewing day. For VRA and Watch & Rate content, you can make a PBE booking for any future date as long as you give us at least two working days’ notice between booking and the viewing slot itself.

Premium PBE

For VRA content, Watch & Rate content and theatrical trailers, we also offer a Premium PBE service. This service is useful for last-minute submissions. It provides 180 Premium PBE minutes for VRA/Watch & Rate works and space for six Premium PBE theatrical trailers each afternoon. Premium PBE slots open for booking at 9am one working day before the viewing. This means that, subject to availability, you can submit your content up to 5pm for a viewing the next working day.

VRA/Watch & Rate works for Premium PBE must be:

Non-contentious, linear material

A maximum of 180 minutes' running time

Booked in between 9am and 5pm the working day before the viewing

Delivered and paid for by 9.30am on the day of the viewing

Theatrical trailers for Premium PBE must be:

Non-contentious, linear material

Maximum of 5 minutes' running time

Booked in between 9am and 5pm the working day before the viewing

To be viewed on our premises

Paid for by 9.30am on the day of the viewing

Delivered by 11.30am on the day of the viewing

We allocate all PBE and Premium PBE slots on a first-come, first-served basis. Our express services do not compromise the turnaround times for our standard (non-PBE) classification service.

When do I need to send my work in?

PBE bookings starting in an AM session: 3pm the working day before that session (or 4pm for works of 5 minutes or less)

PBE and Premium PBE bookings starting in a PM session: 9.30am on the day of that session (or 11am for works of 5 minutes or less)

If we do not receive your content by these deadlines, we will cancel your PBE or Premium PBE booking and charge a withdrawal fee.

For theatrical content examined at an external screening room, delivery times may depend on submission format. Please note, bookings for non-English language works are subject to the availability of suitable interpreters.

How much does it cost?

PBE and Premium PBE attract higher fees than standard submissions. You can find details of fees and service charges here.

Please note our withdrawal fees for regular PBE and Premium PBE.

When do I get a decision?

As long as your content is suitable for our PBE service, we will make the age rating details available on the extranet within the following deadlines:

PBE content viewed in an AM session: 2pm the same day.

PBE and Premium PBE content viewed in a PM session: 6pm the same day.

If a regular PBE submission has a running time that requires it to be viewed across more than one PBE viewing slot, the decision will be delivered at the deadline relevant to the last viewing slot.

Please note that if we find, in the course of viewing PBE or Premium PBE content, that it is unsuitable for the PBE service in line with our stated criteria, we will transfer the content into our standard submission process but we reserve the right to charge the PBE fee. We will notify you by the relevant PBE deadline if this is the case, and after that, all deadlines for delivering an age rating for this submission are null and void.

Further information

If you are unsure if your content is suitable for our PBE or Premium PBE service, or if you have any other questions regarding these services, please contact the customer helpline for advice.

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